Bedtime Story
by Eponymous Rose
Summary: Agent South hasn't slept in over fifty-three hours. Tex is on the case.


Agent Texas doesn't remember falling asleep.

The mission she remembers, sure, the routine extraction of scientific intel necessary for the Director's latest vision for the project. Which means, of course, that she spent the whole time kicking her heels at the LZ, because for once the team managed to hold together and get the job done. And hey, good for them and all, but there's only so many shitty field manuals you can page through before you get bored and have to start patching into the not-so-secure stash of pulp fiction some anonymous pilot keeps uploading to the mission link.

So yeah, okay, she remembers perching on the edge of a rock under a starry sky and scrolling through some crap about hardboiled detectives and dames with legs down to, you know, wherever. She also remembers the training session afterwards, the quick snap of her fists, the tension bleeding away. Beat her training routine PB by five seconds. Hell yeah.

But when FILSS says, "Agent Texas?" she jolts awake sitting bolt-upright in the chair in her quarters, and she doesn't remember how she got there.

"Yeah," she says, and brings up a hand to rub at her eyes. Presses a kevlar glove to her helmet's faceplate instead. Dammit, didn't even make it out of the armor before passing out. How many times has she done that lately? "Yeah, FILSS, I'm up, what's happening?"

A hesitation. "We have a... situation with Agent South."

Tex's armor is running some sort of diagnostic routine she doesn't recognize; she glares at the icon on her HUD until the progress bar fills and disappears. "Surprising absolutely no one."

"Agent South has just passed her fifty-third hour without sleep. Prescription of sedatives thirteen hours ago has had no effect."

"Sucks to be Agent South, then, doesn't it?" Tex actually feels pretty well-rested now that the grogginess is starting to wear off, but she indulges in a yawn and stretch. Her neck doesn't even feel stiff after sleeping sitting up. Benefits of power armor. "What, does she need a bedtime story?"

"She has requested your presence."

Tex pauses. The sum total of her interactions with Agent South thus far have involved a lot of blood, screaming, and raised middle fingers. She says, cautiously, "Does she want me to... punch her unconscious or something?"

"Unclear," says FILSS.

Tex digs a finger into a groove in her desk. "When she asked for me, was it in a sarcastic tone of voice to keep you from bothering her?"

Another hesitation. "Possibly."

"Uh-huh," says Tex, and tips back in her chair, just a little. Fifty-three hours without sleep. That's... interesting. "Tell South her knight in shining armor's on her way."

Everything's strange and quiet during ship's night. The _Mother of Invention_ 's way too fucking big for the number of people living inside as it is, but at night the skeleton crew makes the discrepancy downright ludicrous. Tex stomps a little as she walks, just to hear the echoes of her boots in the wide corridors.

FILSS points her to a locker room—not even the one branching off from the training room, the smaller one next to the gym that always stinks of stale sweat—and when Tex strides through the door, she runs right into South, who appears to be pacing the length of the room. It actually seems to take South a second to realize she's just bumped into someone; out of armor, she's suddenly short enough next to Tex that she bumps her forehead on her chestplate.

Then she stops, looks up, and jolts back, belatedly. Her red-rimmed eyes wander vaguely across the expanse of Tex's armor, like she's trying to figure out how to focus them. "What the fuck!"

"Heard you needed a bedtime story," Tex drawls.

"What the _fuck_."

Tex shrugs and strides past her. "AIs are super literal-minded, don't you ever watch TV? FILSS came and got me."

South sputters, her face going red, but in the end the astonishment clearly requires more energy than she has left, and she slouches back against a locker, rubbing at her face. "FILSS can go fuck herself."

Tex sits down on a bench. "I mean, I just finished saying how literal-minded she is, and I don't know that she's got that capability. Kinda cruel to suggest if you're not gonna allow someone the follow-through."

South's expression evokes one of those old-ass paintings where someone stares beseechingly and a little dopily into the sky. "Why is this happening right now."

One ankle hooked over the other, Tex leans back. "Thought it'd be funny. How'd you swing that, anyway? Fifty-three hours? No luck with sedatives? I know for a fact that some military organizations would kill to develop that technology."

South rubs her face again; her eyes are bloodshot, bruised deep black underneath. "I hate everything."

"Oh, shit," Tex says. "They did develop that technology, didn't they? Only people who'd do something that shitty in the name of machismo are ODSTs. You're a damn Helljumper!"

Sarcasm lends South the strength to straighten up and punch a locker, halfheartedly. She's moving like she sees everything in stop-motion, a little too careful and cautious. "You figure that out all by yourself? No wonder you're teacher's pet."

"Huh," Tex says. She's trying to dig through her memory for the past encounters every soldier's had with Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, but all she can glean is a vague sense of loud-mouthed assholes who revel in their expendability. Not someone you want sitting next to you at the mess, but definitely someone you want fighting your war. "No, that's fair, I probably should've guessed sooner. Thought Helljumpers had the whole tattoo thing going. How's that jive with the 'no past lives' thing Freelancer does?"

South smiles a rictus grin, tugs up her shirt to reveal a smear of scar tissue that runs along the right side of her ribs. "Figured they'd be less pissy about me removing it if it I did it with fire."

Tex's first instinct is to recoil—she can't remember the specifics, but she's definitely had a few serious burns over the years, and what the _fuck_ —but she thinks again of that vague common-knowledge of ODSTs buried in her brain. Shrugs. "Yeah, that sounds about right."

South tugs her shirt up further, inspecting the edges of the scar—she's got a hot pink bra on, because of _course_ she does—then drops her shirt again, scratches at the scar through the fabric. Glances over at Tex, does a double-take. "Why are you here?"

For once, there's no particular snideness in the question, just genuine confusion. "Boy," Tex says. "You really are fucked up. Should've started recording when I came in the room. Waypoint loves this sort of thing, like all those post-anesthesia videos. Just tell me you always dreamed of being a country singer and we've got a viral video on our hands."

South squints, puts her back to the lockers, and starts slowly sliding down. Her shirt bunches up against the locker behind her, pulling up against her breasts, and her annoyingly nice abs peek into view when she finally makes it down to the floor. And look, Tex is busy, not dead, so it's entirely possible she's been aware of those annoyingly nice abs for a while now. She remembers, with a certain twisted fondness, holding a pressure bandage to a gaping wound in South's gut on a field mission.

"Why are you even still in armor," South mutters, rubbing at her face. "You people are all fucking weird."

Tex shrugs. "Don't have to take it off to piss. Real convenient."

South snorts. "You into that?"

"That was almost a snappy rejoinder," says Tex. "I'm impressed." A beat. "Well, no, I'm not, but I can pretend. So this is ODST's drug cocktail at work?"

"Genetic modifications," South says, pressing her back to the locker and bringing her knees up to her chest, which is deeply unfair for annoyingly-nice-abs-related reasons. "Got some fucked-up genes that don't play nice with the augmentations. Once every, like, four months or so I just stop being able to fall asleep. Usually not this bad."

"And you've tried sedatives."

"No, because I have a brain the size of a dingleberry. Of _course_ I tried sedatives. Yeah, great, swell, now I'm just even more tired and can't sleep."

Tex hides a laugh at the mournful sigh: everything South does is so exaggerated right now that it's outright absurd. "Don't worry, kid, you got a real nice personality to fall back on. You try—"

"I," South says, "have tried _everything._ " She makes a valiant attempt at waggling her eyebrows, but wavers and slides sideways along the locker until she's lying on the filthy floor. "I'm so glad you're here to see me in this my hour of need."

Tex stands, walks over to look down at her. Cocks her head to one side. "View's not half bad."

South mashes her face into the floor with a heavy sigh. "You're a weird fuck, Tex."

"Says the washed-up Helljumper making out with a dirty-ass floor."

"You're a dirty ass," South mumbles.

An icon pops up in Tex's HUD; FILSS, on a secure channel. "Agent South's brainwaves are showing the start of a sleep cycle."

Tex nudges her with her boot. "You want me to drag you to your quarters, or are you good sleeping it off here?"

In response, South snores. Tex shrugs, crouches next to her, drapes a limp arm over her shoulders, and pushes back to her feet. Out of armor, South feels light as a goddamn feather. Tex shifts her position, can't quite remember the exact moment this brings swimming to the surface of her memory. Dragging some drunk fuck home from the bar? Dragging someone off a battlefield?

She adjusts her grip, remembers the scar tissue along South's ribs, and pulls back, shifting her hand. South tips her head to one side. She's totally gonna drool on Tex's shoulder pauldron. "Such a fucked-up army," Tex mutters, to no one in particular.

"Well done, Agent Texas," FILSS says. "Agent South is asleep."

"Guess that's why she asked for me," Tex grunts, and starts off down the too-empty corridors, pushing through half-formed memories, an unaccustomed warmth in her chest.


End file.
